Friday, August 28, 2009

This summer, I have been far too obsessed with the light to realize the darkness one must traverse to reach it.

-Zack

"Is this the chance when we fly away, cause I need to know if I'm coming back"
-Mae

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Art Coma...

I stayed up til 3 a.m. yesterday, reading...actually, I think I probably spent like, ten hours reading yesterday...maybe not that much, but I read around 500 pages..and finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It really did confirm everything I said about it on Monday; it's the Chronicles of Narnia for me of now...indeed, I am sure I have not felt those sort of emotions since I finished The Last Battle (a long, long time ago). I can't really blame people that haven't read the books; like Narnia (this is a paraphrase from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), if you have not been there, we cannot expect you to believe or know what it's all about...that's also an analogy for the Kingdom of God, but aside from that, while I think everyone should read Harry Potter, if they haven't, I don't expect them to want to by any measure. But I cannot understand, for the life of me, how someone could start and never finish...it's not really a matter of taste, to be quite honest...it's a matter of humanity....but so is the fact that I don't understand things about other people....indeed, that's always been one of the largest breaks between me and most of my family....well, all of my immediate family...the way they flippantly talk about, dismiss, and disregard even the greatest pieces of cultural significance is absolutely irksome to me...it cuts right to the core of what I am. I know I can be overly emotional, especially for a guy, and that's certainly got a lot to do with it, but I do attach a lot of meaning and value to great characters and great stories...it's just who I am...and in Harry Potter, lies the greatest of both realms. There's probably something about God in all of that, but I'm not sure what right now.

How I'm feeling right now is a feeling I encounter rarely but it's not at all unfamiliar...it's a sort of all-consuming, overwhelming catharsis mingled with joy. I kind of think it's the feeling of seeing your only daughter get married, or something like that...but obviously, I've no way to know....and I know it's tied into the end of the Harry Potter saga. Part of me doesn't want to admit it's over, but I'm glad it is and I'm glad it ended as it did....indeed, much like The Chronicles of Narnia, it ended on a train out of London bound for a magical world...which, in the case of Harry Potter, is much how it began too...in fact, you cold probably say that, essentially, that's how The Chronicles of Narnia began too (though you don't really see that in the book). But that's an aside...what I'm trying to say is that something happens to me, something, not altogether nice-feeling, but definitely good after the end of things like Harry Potter (or Kingdom Hearts, or the Last Battle, or Futurama, or Wuthering Heights, or Dancer in the Dark, or The Once and Future King...the list is long and varied)...Practically, it means I'm much more present here than I have been in months, because suddenly, I don't have the constant wondering of what comes next to distract me...indeed, I'm sure I'll be much more productive now. That being said, I'm not at all very mentally present today...the weight of a large epiphanisation, in Joyce's terms, rests upon me today. I know though, from experience, that the personal meaning I'll be able to glean could be years, even decades off...indeed, I'm still experiencing Narnia shockwaves today...mostly because of the name Lucy, but that's a story for next Thursday, perhaps. I'm not quite sure how to describe it...as I'm trying to relate how I relate to art (specifically of the literary sort, which even story-driven video games can be considered), which isn't easy in its own rite, I'm also trying to figure out how to show what that means to me as a unique person, a distinct soul....I feel like I'm failing, but that's unimportant. All it comes down to is that I'm a different, better, but altogether more like the me I was supposed to be, person now...and that really did happen through the experience of seven books by J.K. Rowling. I don't think it's the same for everyone...I'm sure it's not. But that's how it is for me...I better understand, today, Stephen Dedalus' attempt to understand the world through art....but I find the fatal flaw; he was (like his creator, like me until basically right now) obsessed with the aesthetics of it all....Harry Potter would be very much below him...but it's not about the aesthetics, not at all...those are quantifiable, studiable, gradeable...but that's exactly the problem. He speaks of epiphanies and he speaks of universals due to aesthetics..but the problem is the reliance of the universal. Perhaps aesthetics are universal, and the epiphanies from them...but even so, as such, they are shallow, empty epiphanies (much like how I'm ultimately dissatisfied with my I.S.....) True epiphany gains power because of a resonance in a work of art with the readers soul...there is something there for them, especially for them, and it comes from all of it, the combination of it all...it is in the characters...who they are, how they act...in the events, in that world...there's a resonance there, and that's where the true epiphany lies. The result is a realization, on the part of the reader, of more and more of his or her self that has always existed and is yet being discovered in step with God's plan. That is true epiphany and that is the true service of the arts....ultimately, it is why as boring as it can seem (and I really do mean that...it's true) The Bible is the engaging life-blood that it is...it might not be able to hold an attention span all that well much of the time, but the words of the Lord are naturally existent for the epiphanisation into the lives of the hearers and readers, and therefore, nothing else matters.

Alright...that's probably enough about all that for now....

I'm in the midst of another week with little to no Fund raising progress....actually, as of right now, my percent moved down thanks to a misunderstanding, on my part, of an undecided monthly gift...basically, what I thought was a decision was really just the first installment of many monthly gifts that can vary, month to month. Ultimately, it cold catch up with itself...but right now, it means I lost a percent. My prayer request, and you can join in, is that I regain that percent, and perhaps another, by tomorrow afternoon.

I must admit, it was a little weird and almost surprising, to wake up this morning and not have anymore Harry Potter to read...it's all kind of a dreamish blur now and part of me does wish I had awoke to an eighth book. But in any event, it has been a glorious summer, and it's a summer I will always remember as tied in with that book series....it wasn't long into the summer that I visited a thrift store with two guys I'm not really friends with anymore, and saw that the Chamber of Secrets was there...unfortunately, I didn't have the money on me to buy it. But I returned with my parents shortly after that, and did..I remember walking to the stores around town to see if they had the Prisoner of Azkaban before I had the ability to get to the library....I remember when all but one copy of The goblet of Fire was checked out, and it was some random, only-one-in-the-series-in-the-young-adult-book-section copy. I still don't know why they have one copy of one Harry Potter book in the Young Adult section...but it was exactly what I needed then.....I remember a long, probably alienating and overall ridiculously fannish conversation about Harry Potter with another IVCF staffmember at the regional staff conference....it definitely validated my feelings toward reading "kids books" all summer. And, as of right now, I mostly remember my life since Sunday...where, for 4 days, I did little but read...and have rarely been so satisfied in two books.

Okay, this post is too long and mostly useless for others to read...but I definitely had to write it.
-Zack

"What do I do with a love that won't sit still?"
-Vienna Teng

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Echoing the White Rabbit...

By my own standards, this is late...there are a lot of reasons for that, coming each successive day I haven't done it and starting Thursday...I don't really know why I didn't update Thursday...I was putting it off all day, then had to go to bed because I had to get up at 6:30 on Friday...at that point, I had planned to do it when I got home Saturday night...but then I didn't get home until about midnight...and didn't want to do it then. I've no terribly legitimate reason to have not done it Sunday or yesterday...my best reason probably has to do with Harry Potter...I read the last 300 pages of book 6 Sunday and I've been reading as much of book 7 as I can as often as I can ever since....it's bittersweet though, because I must admit, I don't want it to end.

I'm not sure what to say about Harry Potter, but I think I have much to say. I must admit that I don't think I was ever wrong about the books. They aren't written too terribly well; indeed, I could probably, in the technical sense, write circles around Rowling, and that's saying something because I'm not a great fiction writer at all. But when it comes to making a story, I do think Rowling may be the best, most creative novelist we've ever seen...the only exception might be C.S. Lewis for Narnia...but there's something more impressive, something more addictive, something more, well, magical about Harry Potter. That being said, I might replace Harry Potter with The Chronicles of Narnia just to see...it feels like blasphemy, and Lewis could write circles around just about anyone...but there's just something about Harry Potter and it is wonderful; indeed, it is perfect. 7 books and 7 movies seem far too short...and it's not like it's 7 short books and 7 short movies...I know it can't go on forever, but I'm not sure I'll ever be totally satisfied in that....if only the Wheel of Time or Dark Tower series were Harry Potter...as far as I can tell, those will go on forever. That being said, I've quite the penchant for identifying with the characters in Harry Potter, and I'm not sure I would want that to happen to them...even so, no matter what happens in the end, I will at least be sad that it is the end..... If absolutely nothing else, I have not felt this way about a book, much less a series of books, since I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was very, very very young....it's a sort of magic I've been looking to recapture; indeed, perhaps even spending thousands of dollars on a college education in the subject, to try to recapture...and there it was, the whole time, being insulted, snapped at, tossed about like trash by me the whole time....I didn't want to admit that everyone was right about books....Maybe though, without that education, I wouldn't have broken down and given Harry Potter a try...so it really did take all that time and money to get me here.

One interesting thing too, although probably not too important, is that the last book came out while I was in China...that's kind of significant to me for no real reason.

I'm not really sure what to talk about now. I've had all sorts of things slide through my mind over the past few days while I've been putting this off...but even so, nothing is coming to mind right now.

I think the best movie I've seen in a theatre this year, so far, was yesterday: Inglorious Basterds. Even though I've studied him extensively, I think the same things stick out in my mind about Tarantino, and his reputation still precedes him. Let's just say, IB was far from the movie I expected, knowing the premise...that being said, it was exactly what I would expect from Tarantino, when I think about what his movies are actually saying.

Yes, it's violent...very much so....as always, overly so. But, as always, no matter the attention payed to the debased, Tarantino has the control over his films (really, control that only Hitchcock, Antonioni, and Fellini have exhibited) such that the bad guys, even if they win, never win. There's a screaming social commentary that we, as Americans, are far too fast to forget the humanity of all humans...even Nazis. Even in doing so, the actions and tenets of Nazism are not held to any level of regard...and, even in what, to the untrained eye, would look like a glorification of ultraviolence, what really happens is an absolute and utter example of the inhumanity of war...all war. I don't know if Tarantino is a pacifist...indeed, that would probably be ironic...but in using WWII, the most common argument against pacifism, Tarantino performs to ultimate post-modern coup de grace in showing us that even a war that seems justifiable is ultimately a picture of inhumanity even on the side of the "good guys." But he doesn't say that. He doesn't have to. Film is powerful because it doesn't ask you directly to do or think anything...but even so, it makes you think about something.....and, because it's tarantino, it's beautiful, horrific, and hilarious all at once. I do recommend it, but I fear many self proclaimed "Tarantino fans" will dislike it and miss the point by quite a bit.

Patriots-Packers is my Superbowl pick.

I always pick the Packers....

Fund raising isn't going as slowly as I thought it was...by that I just mean that I'm not in a position much different from many others....that's strangely reassuring. Actually, the biggest thing right now is how small my average gift is...I've got a lot of donors...but the gifts are small. I'm kind of okay with that...I've kind of always thought and I think said, a couple of times, that I want to "Obama" it...meaning like, a lot of small gifts instead of a few big ones...the problem being, with my current average gift, I need like, 200 donors...and that's ten times the amount I've got right not. I've got the contacts...they just haven't had the will or the ability quite yet. I do have faith I'll get there...most certainly. God's a great provider like that.

-Zack

"Where you're headed to we don't have to guess"
-Mae

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Goodnight and Go....

To be honest, I've only kind of lamented the fact that I'm not going back to Wooster this fall. Let's be honest...it's awesome, not having I.S. staring me down all of the time, and it's awesome, not having classes, homework, and papers.

But then I realized, mostly from facebook statuses, that right now, like, tonight, the first night of bandcamp, and the coming week, is about the best week ever at the College of Wooster. Being free from class but on campus..it's just wonderful. And it's so nice to get back after a long or boring or busy or hard summer. I've had all of those...heck, I've had all of those this summer...but I don't get that fresh beginning this time. I remember those feelings...the newness of a new room, the optimism of new classes, the excitement of NSO...I definitely miss them. Okay, so NSO, while it may or may not come into my life this year, definitely isn't leaving my life permanently...even so, right now, at this moment...I just miss that hopefulness.

On the whole, I only kind of miss Wooster, and I know I'll never miss the work. But I'll always miss things like those first couple of packed out nights at Common Grounds, and I'll miss the feelings of community, both small and campus wide. I'm sure other forms of community await me...I'm sure my life is not just going to go downhill from here...but even so, I'll always remember those times fondly. I don't know if it was Wooster or just college, but I never thought I could love a place for all it is as much as I love and miss Wooster right now...but I'm glad I miss it, because for a long time, I wasn't sure I would miss anything but the people. I think I miss the people most, definitely, but I'm glad I get to miss to place too, and I cannot wait to visit.

I was about to start ranking my four years in college, from worst to best or vice versa...but then I realized I couldn't do that. Maybe I will be able to someday, but right now, I just can't distill them down enough.

Freshman year was great because it was a time for new things...but it was hard a lot too, in the newness. I never quite regained the sort of friends I had the beginning of that year, but thankfully, I never had to lose friends quite like I did by the end again either.

Sophomore year was interesting...it was good, it was I.S. free, and it was the best of my two common grounds years, I think (it's so much better, not living in Gable...and when the guys specifically don't live in Gable). First semester was at times brililant and at times impossible...I had a very exciting, very short-lived, and probably very wrong relationship to start it off...then started falling into the longest relationship of my life by the end of it, but the fact that she, Meg, didn't go to Wooster, probably made Sophomore year, specifically second semester, one of the hardest spans of time in my life. But it was the "InterVarsity Year" if there ever was one.... Fall Conference, Urbana, MAC, Urban Plunge, China....very full, and ultimately, very awesome. Second semester also featured one of my least favorite classes ever...Chaucer...which would have been amazing if my advisor hadn't been on sabbatical that year...it was the semester that I started studying film though, and that proved to be humongous in my life...and I took one of my favorite classes ever: The Ancient Novel...well, and I guess Comparative Film was my favorite class ever...so that could have been the best semester as far as classes go...even though Chaucer was so bad.

Coming off of China made junior year weird...it wasn't bad, and I had the best roommate I would ever have in college, but even so, the year was strange. Living in Common Grounds got old (although, looking back, I do think I wish I had stuck out for the third year), but it really wasn't bad. French Film was incredible....it was the year of It Could Be U though...and, while that was good, it was hard and I might still be a little exhausted from it all (kidding, I think). I think my relationship with Meg met its apex when I left for China and she went to SLT, so I think there was an added and unnamed stress about the year that I did not want to acknowledge. I honestly don't remember junior year all that well, as a year...but it was a good year...Junior I.S. was far easier than it should have been I think.

Senior year was good...because it was senior year. It was hard. Very hard. Things didn't go anywhere near as well in Gault Manor as I had hoped (mostly for roommate incompatibilities)...classes just got boring, and my least favorite class at Wooster was on my favorite author (James Joyce). The Price of Life basically was my first semester, and really, it was a good semester...actually, as a year, save for much of my personal life, it was a great year. Classes were mostly great, I.S. was fun (and easy, comparatively....just a ton of work mostly), I definitely grew with God and grew as an evangelist specifically. I feel like I'm still kind of riding on waves from second semester, wherein I became really good friends with people I'll rarely see now that I've graduated...great time to make friends, second semester of your senior year is. I guess really, starting toward the end of first semester, basically, when I broke up with Meg if not a bit before or even a bit later (the price of life kind of blurs it all, to be honest), to no fault of anyone but perhaps myself if anyone, I definitely started feeling isolated in my personal life. I still definitely had friends, and great friends at that...but I kind of stopped connecting with anyone on a deep level....it just happened. I think it was something I always did with Meg before anyone else, then, in losing her, I just kind of shut off for awhile...and I hope I'm not there anymore, but I definitely feel like I am sometimes...mostly though, probably because I'm actually physically shut off from most of the world most of the time now...anyway, second semester was weird and good and bad and just everything....the day before graduation was glorious and one of the hardest days of my life. I was rejected by a girl that I still wouldn't be surprised to marry in four or five years, were it not for an as to yet irretrievable falling for a girl that decided we shouldn't talk then, (which is still going on to this day, as a side note)....so my second semester, personally, was a total emotional roller coaster and train wreck...

And right now, life is very hard....Next to all my communication with the outside world seems to be for funding, and about 75-80% of that communication ends in some form of rejection....

I could definitely let myself be filled with despair right now.

But I won't, and that's mostly because God won't.

And that's the abbreviated lifestory I've got for you, for the last 4 years of my life.

-Zack

"Lead me now, I understand, faith is both the prison and the open hand"
-Vienna Teng

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Across..

I almost had another relationship-themed post Tuesday night....I'm kind of glad I didn't. I don't remember what I was going to say in it now, so both the daily posting and the theme streak is finally broken...for now.

It has been a strange, strange week. I'm not really even too sure how, but I feel like I'm making progress without results with fund raising. I'm scheduling meetings, making calls, doing all the right stuff...but there just hasn't been much in the way of results. That's not as discouraging as I could let it be, I think.

I'm definitely coming to a weird point in life though...I'm just very in-between things. I've got to get funded, that's for sure...but I've also got to start making money...hopefully the two don't clash...that would be helped by getting funded, at least enough, to have some kind of an income to stay afloat while I continue to work on the funding. We'll just see what happens I guess....

And I really need a car...I'm not sure how that's going to happen, but it's very much up to God. There's not a lot I can do to get one til, well, I'm making some kind of money. All of my money, right now, comes from randomly occurring sales on Amazon. It's actually kind of amazing I've stayed financially afloat, when I think about it...but that's the sovereignty of God for you. I'm definitely blessed to live at home with minimal living expenses right now...but I also know this cannot continue endlessly.

My brother was recently hired at Wal Mart to be one of the cart-collecting guys. Ever since, he's endlessly said things about how he "has a real job, doesn't beg for money, and actually does something." It gets annoying, especially because he couldn't do any single part of my job, like, at all. It's led to some arguments...and I know I've got to learn to not respond with so much ire...but it's hard.

I intentionally watched Soccer on t.v. for the first time ever yesterday. It wasn't too bad. There's a lot I don't know about, but I would like to be able to engage in that a bit more...it's got to be the world's most popular sport for a reason, right? I'm sure it won't ever overtake basketball or American Football for me, but even so, I want to enjoy it more than I can right now. That's definitely because the U.S. has a, in comparison, poor league that just about never gets any real coverage. Sure, they'll tell you the same story from NFL training camp 15 times in a 60 minute sports center...but the only time you hear about soccer is when it's an international competition and the U.S. is involved or when something ends up in top plays. Just a quick rundown of scores would be nice....seriously. Summer sports wouldn't be nearly as bad if they replaced all of the ramping-up for American Football season with coverage of sports that were actually taking place.... You still only ever hear about grand slams in Tennis, for instance...even though that's a very popular sport that is almost always going on during the summer. Of course, you can find whatever you want on the internet...but there's a definitely way that ESPN's selection of things to cover on Sports Center and subsequent programming sets the sport-discourse in the United States.

I wonder if there will ever be any significance for me in the fact that the Qinghai province looks like a rabbit.

It's really weird, actually, how rabbits have constantly intersected my life.

I don't think I'm going to talk about that at length.

I decided to start reading the books of Ezra...I started yesterday. I always kind of forget what it's about...then realize the content is a lot less interesting than the subject...mostly because there are so many names. That happens in Nehemiah too....that's one of my favorite books in the Bible (thanks to it appearing ALL of the time in my life, kind of like rabbits), but I always forget about the longs lists of things when I get down to reading it. It's definitely worth a read...but I'm, unfortunately, always disappointed with the act of reading. That being said, past the reading itself, in the thinking about what's actually going on (and the same is true of Ezra) there is much to be gleaned....much beauty, much glory...and many names. Names of people that existed, people that matter...but names that make reading a bit..rocky. And I don't skip the lists...I never do..I can never bring myself to.

After I finish Ezra, I'm going to read through (and try to without giggling the whole time), the Song of Solomon. It really is a beautiful book...and I know there's a lot of greatness there too...it's glorious that it exists, but sometimes unfortunate that it gets pigeon-holed as "the sex book" so often...I admit I'm guilty of that.

So I'm just going to keep on walking....as boldly as I can...into the next thing.
-Zack

"Patience is a priceless lesson; oh won't you learn it with me"
-Mae

Monday, August 10, 2009

Day 3:Regularity

I think, when you do something three days in a row, even if you don't plan to do it a fourth, people might expect it a fourth and beyond. I don't know what my plans are right now, despite whatever your expectations may be.

That's assuming someone, anyone, checks this daily. I don't know about that, but I do know that this could be a very slippery, daily post slope...or it could be my last post til Thursday, when I restart and resume just posting on Thursdays.

But I've got something I meant to talk about yesterday and just forgot...

I don't think I'm the only one that's heard some form of "getting your relationship right with God before starting a romantic relationship" maxim. It makes sense right? It's kind of a key marker in the tome of evangelical dating discourse. And I think it's totally wrong from a theological standpoint.

I've heard it in many contexts, and maybe they aren't all wrong in motivation. One of them, for me, for instance, was as a rejection. That makes sense in motivation...you don't want to date me so why not play the God card? Heck, I've played the God card more than once to get out of relationships (and by calling it the God card, I don't even mean that I wasn't sincere).
I've heard it from pulpits and read it in books too, and while I think the motivation: "young people should focus on the Lord more than dating" is valid, I think it's irresponsible to tell young people to try to get right with God before thinking about entering a relationship.

How many other things does God draw us into after we've gotten right with Him whatever that means.....short of the initial decision for Christ, I think God calls us into things often when we're not at all right with him...as a means to get their and beyond.

I shouldn't be a missionary if I have to wait til I get right with God. I'll never be that...not perfectly. It's a process, it always will be. And I think a whole lot more people are called into marriage than vocational ministry. But the leading line is that it's good for anyone and everyone to pursue God's call into ministry, to take his reputation into their hands for better or for worse if God is leading them...but it's not right to enter into a romantic relationship.... That doesn't make sense.

I'm not saying everyone should just date and date and date with no regard for the Father. Oh no, I don't think Christians should be dating for the heck of it in general. But to say you're focusing on God instead of guys/girls...well, when did the line get drawn? Why is there a dichotomy? Personally, I never want to be in a relationship with a girl when I'm not focusing on my relationship with God. I never want to be anywhere when that isn't the case....

Indeed, God-led relationships can should and will build us up. Two very good friends got married this summer, and both of them are all about serving God. When they met...I think it's safe to say that wasn't the case at all. God met them despite being in a relationship.... maybe even because of it; to even use the words, despite the motivation that would suggest God will do otherwise is simply a cutting of God's power and oftentimes a lie. If you don't want to date me or don't want to date anyone...say that...don't say it's because you're working on your relationship with God instead, because if you're not working on your relationship with God when you're dating me, then I'm not interested in dating you.

Of course, there probably are cases where it's good advice. Very specific cases...and I think God will lead you into those. I can definitely see a reality when someone shouldn't be in a relationship because they use it to stray from God or to undercut their faith/reliance in/on Him...or maybe it's just a matter of God saying "at this point in your life, I need you single." That's valid. I can't say everywhere God is leading everyone, that's for sure.

But to make it so cut and dry as the draw the line between being in a romantic relationship or "working on your relationship with God" is nigh blasphemous. If God wants you in a relationship, it's best to let it be so than fear you're not close enough to him...he'll draw you closer and he may use the other person to do that.

All this is, once more to say, that I don't know where God is leading everyone. I think though, that squashing potential relationship between two Jesus-loving people in the name of growing closer to the Lord instead is absolutely wrong. We are meant to grow to the Lord in community....why in the world should we think it's impossible to do with a romantic endeavor; something that can be a very real, true, and intimate form of community?

What I'm railing against mostly, I guess, is the discourse, the rhetoric of it all. Maybe people that use these lines would agree with me.... but I want to point out the danger of doing that with language. When you create catch phrases, when you package theology, you don't allow for the fullness of the Lord, the uniqueness he has imbued in each of us, to shine through. Language is necessarily complex, and removing complexity for the sake of creating lines for uninterested Christian girls to turn down well meaning Christian guys is removing any bit of the truth and the sacred from the motivation that led to the lines in the first place. Just be upfront...just be clear. And if necessary...be verbose.


That, and I'm probably a little bitter for running into it from time to time in my own romantic endeavors.


-Zack
"Come so close that I might see the crash of light come down on me"
-Mazzy Star

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Sabbath Ponderings Episode 1

Two posts in as many days...you would think I'm picking up the pace, maybe getting obsessed or something. Who knows, I might be...but I don't think that's the case. I just think Thursday's update was a bit late and this one just kind of happening. This might turn into a semi-regular occurence, for me to post on Sundays. But I won't commit to it because committing to something regular (outside of worship) on a Sabbath is the antithesis of a Sabbath.

This is the first sabbath where I'm trying to stay off of facebook. Not in a legalistic sort of way, but in a "I order my life around facebook far too much and I need to break out of that" sort of way. I'll probably work on cutting out e-mail eventually too.

But that's not what this is about. A little bit after I posted last night, I got to thinking about things, and almost did another post. I'm glad I didn't, because what it was going to be definitely fits with what this is going to be.

Just a warning though, I can't guarantee cohesion...there are going to be a lot of things just thrown around with bits of narrative explanation....so probably not too different.

Mostly, I just realize that Sabbath is supposed to be, largely, about reflecting on and processing life, to be renewed for the coming week. And I do that outwardly...I do that here. So...that's what this is all about.

I went to a new church this morning. Definitely an "emerging" (see older post about how I hate that term...) sort of thing, planted, apparently, by the former youth pastor at Wooster Mennonite. It was definitely the most comfortable I've felt at a church in Northwestern Ohio in a very long time. I wish I had started going earlier this summer, and I hope I get to go back often, even if just for a little while. The saddest part is that my family is moving so it can't even be the church I go to when I'm home. I'm glad I've got somewhere, even if just for the next month or so, anyway.

Speaking of the post-modern church movement, I think that's a possibility for an eventual job for me. It's definitely a long way off because I'm still planning on eventual foreign missions (although who says the two can't meet?), but I could definitely see myself as a part of an "emergent congregation." Indeed, much of my life has been on that sort of trajectory for a lot of reasons...I'm an astute student of post-modernism and I spent much of my college career doing the exact sort of thing emerging churches try to do...there's really little difference, at least in my mind, between a really good InterVarsity large group and a post-modern worship service....and that makes total sense, as the audience is largely the same.

This leads me to another thing: for some reason, I don't see myself leaving InterVarsity staff til I'm married, and as far as I can tell, that's irrational. When I think about going to seminary, going to the foreign mission field, starting a post-modern church...there's just this slight block in my mind that tells me I can't do it til I'm married. I guess I'm just afraid to settle somewhere on my own. Being with InterVarsity, I'm allowed to be at leat slightly transient. My long-distance time with Meg has definitely turned me off from any sort of long-term, long-distance relationship, and settling somewhere could create that. Wither InterVarsity, when push comes to shove, you're never more than one school year from being able to relocate if God's calling you in a certain direction. That's my analysis of it at least...it could also (as in, in conjunction) be because God has plans for me to get married before I leave staff. Only time will tell, most certainly.

I think I'm about to make this the third post in a row in which I talk about meeting people to date. I never really mentioned meeting someone in church, and until today, that's because I always thought it was a little hard, maybe even a little lame, and a little underhanded. That changed today (and no, not because I met someone at church). I realized today though, that church is like, the ultimate meeting place for singles. Take college...you never really know (especially without facebook) if someone is in a relationship or not, and alongside that, you never know what expectations are or may be. But at church, oh my, things are so different. It's rare that a single twenty-something at church is going to consider themselves entirely off the market. It's just Christian culture...although Paul harps on the value of singleness, we never, ever, ever think of it as an actual first option. Basically, everyone single is on the market, so to speak (myself included...). And it's even a walk in the park identifying potential dates...seriously, what Christian worth dating doesn't bring their significant other to church (in reality, plenty, I'm sure, but not too many, and not many per-congregation). So you know, if someone, let's say a girl, since I'm a guy, isn't sitting with a guy approximately their age (and/or probably holding hands with said guy) he or she is probably single. Sure, there are plenty of instances of this not being the case, I'm sure, but not past college. When you're in college, things like boyfriends at other schools or girlfriends from other states during the summer come into play...but that's got to be rare after we've all graduated right? I certainly think so...it certainly seems to be so. This is dating of course, so it's a necessarily inexact science, to be sure. In any event, it's easy to spot at least potentially single people, and it's easy to do without any commitment. You can get to know countless people without any sort of "intentions" for the good of "the fellowship." It's easy to lead people on at church, in other words, but you can do it entirely guilt free because you "just want to get to know your brothers and sisters in Christ!" Sorry for any crassness on my part. I'm actually trying to argue for the viability of meeting eligible people at church.

This is all kind of topped off by the fact that older, married, "wiser" members of the church will probably be vying for and working to set single members of the church up with each other. I've not really experienced this (mostly because I've never had the chance yet), but I've been around enough to know it happens.

So who knows? I don't know at which church I'll land, once I finally land in Hillsdale...but there could be tons of eligible women just waiting!

Then again, I hope, by then, I'm not quite so available. I do feel like I will be though...just a sinking, pit sort of in the stomach feeling.

This doesn't really bring me to another point, but I have another point and Lupe Fiasco helped me get there... I don't know why I ever just gave up serious writing. I blame Wooster. I don't know if I'll ever get back to it, but there's no real reason (apart from laziness) that I could eek out some sort of novel or two by the time I die. Sure, I may never get published, but there's got to be something there...it's a gift I've just kind of given up on. I don't think I'll ever get back to poetry, because I think that was forever misguided...but I'm not sure why I ever gave all forms of prose save for blogging.

Maybe I'll hold off on that til I'm married too....

Have blessed Sunday!
-Zack

"Photographs, they haunt me lately"
-Anberlin

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Taste and see....

This is two days late. Sorry about that. I'm a big fan of that fact that my two most avid (or at least vocal) readers are a married couple. Newly married, college-friends and all that...but it's kind of the angle on life I'm hacking through right now.

It's been a strange, exciting, exhausting week, and I'm really only posting tonight because I just need to talk for awhile and I'm not sure how to do that...so here I am.

This past week was the Great Lakes East Regional Staff Conference for InterVarsity. In short, the IVCFGLERSC. It was fun, but it was mostly an overwhelming learning experience and it made me much more exhausted than I would have ever expected going in.

We talked largely about identifying and "using" missional students to move the mission of InterVarsity to the center of everything we do. It was pretty evident that we were learning it from someone who is developing the theory, because there are a ton of kinks that definitely still need to be worked out (mostly, how do you use it in a thriving chapter?). I guess I get to be on the frontlines of that in a way. Mostly though, I just hope to survive for awhile. By the end of the week, I kind of felt out on a limb even farther than I was given what going to Hillsdale already meant in terms of adjustment and differences I would be facing...now there's a whole new way to "do InterVarsity" that I felt like I was learning. I often felt like I was being thrust forward without a net, so to speak. It's okay...it was just a lot, because even on top of all of that was a sort of strategic social maneuvering that comes with being one of the new guys. It kind of sucks to be a new guy again. Sure, the rest of the region's staff are great at welcoming...but that never meant I quite felt like I knew what I ought to be doing. There's also a kind of old/young staff divide that's very very unclear, because some old staff fall on the young side of it. It's very unspoken and not really hard, fast, or animosity-creating...but it's just another part of the whole social sphere.

All of this is to say that it was a weird but still great week. It was great to be not-home for a few days. It was great to break out of the FD-trenches for awhile. And it was great because next year, I won't be a new guy. That, and it was great to connect with other first-year staff.

So that's the nuts and bolts of what I've been up to lately, and it's been good, basically.

It has made being home again kind of, well, exactly what it was when I left, but I realize more that I don't enjoy that so much. That being said, the end is at least coming into sight.

I've only got one former girlfriend without a boyfriend right now (not counting the 1 with a husband...). I don't think that really means much, but I'm not sure what I'll think if she ends up in a relationship. This probably wouldn't be note-worthy if it weren't for how many of them there are...heck, right now, since October, is the longest I've been single since May 2005 (october 03 before that...). I would like to not dwell on that enough that I don't even mention it, but I can't help but think about it from time to time. I often wonder what my life would be like right now if I was dating someone. That's something I kind of thought about from time to time at the RSC....there's just a lot of married people...married people not all that much older than me (really, if I were the right age for my grade, not older at all), and people of the same age close to engagement, on staff. That being said, there are a lot of, well, some, at least, totally single people too, like me. I can't really decide which is cooler, from a staff perspective. On one hand, sure, it's obvious being married to the right person at the right time is definitely better than indefinite singleness... but there were definitely times when I felt cool just to be one of the very few single guys. (like really, less than 10 few). I don't know where this is going really...just something that came to mind from time to time.


I try not to eat meat anymore, and I haven't for four days now.. That's largely on purpose and kind of accidental. It's on purpose because I did it intentionally...but it wasn't supposed to happen now. It just happens when I have self determination of what I eat for meals/snacks...and I'm nearly to a week running of that. I don't know if I'll ever be completely vegetarian, and I don't know how vegans do it...but as often as I can, I'm going to eat as few animals as I can.

I really really really want to go back to China. I don't think I can next year because of ONS. I hope to as soon as possible though..... it was our last day in China two years ago right now....like, we were getting on the plane in just a few hours. In some ways, it's hard to believe it's been that long...in others, it feels like it's been longer. Just like graduation...it almost feels like I was never in college sometimes, then others it's hard to believe I'm done. It's really hard to believe I'm not going back to Wooster this fall, but then again, it's about impossible ti imagine my self going back to Wooster as a student again. It's like dating. Part of me wishes, in some way about each former girlfriend, that I had never broken up with her. That being said, I can't imagine my life having dated any one of them this long. Is it that way for everyone? In any event, I think I can usually supply more dating analogies than most because I have many and varied examples to pull.......

I don't think I'll date two more girls in my life. I guess I don't know, but whereas dating used to sound appealing, it just doesn't anymore. I feel like an over-ambitious Christian-school girl in saying that, but it's true. Dating for dating's sake just isn't on any sort of agenda I could see myself having again. That could be problematic....

I have a twitter account now, by the way...it's www.twitter.com/dulacian I don't know how many of you out there do anything with twitter. I don't do much, but I enjoy following people that do...primarily basketball news outlets, as it is now.

I didn't receive many gifts while I was away, to my staff account, but the two I did receive were unexpected surprises. Those are my favorite sort. It'd be nice if I ever ended up with a huge unexpected surprise...I guess we'll see what happens as time goes on. That being said, it's nice to see fruit from actual work too, and I've got a meeting on Wednesday to make work come full circle....it's a contact I met at a church I spoke at thanks to my grandma...that's kind of fundraising at its best. Sometimes (and I know this isn't true.....always) when friends and family give, I almost feel like they're doing it out of a sense of necessity or guilt. That's not that case at all with people I don't know at all, so that's very cool.

My grandma, on my mom's side has been remarkably helpful in everything. She's been telling people, like, everyone she meets, about what I'm doing and she calls or e-mails me almost weekly with new ideas. It's quite the blessing when I don't feel all that supported by the vast majority of the rest of my family....

I don't think I have much more to say. I hope you have a wonderfully restful rest of your weekend.
-Zack

"Want advice? Girls need attention.
Or are you different from all mine?
For all it's worth, she's got attention"
-Ben Folds